Veritas, Vol. 27, No. 04, January 1987

              VOL. 27 NO. 4
To Philip Mann, service to the UM and the community go hand-in-hand
BY SANFORD SCHNIER
HE WAS A SCHOOL DROPOUT AT 16. HE HAD HIS share of hard knocks in life, but he didn’t let them stop him from earning three college degrees, including two at the University of Miami.
He is Dr. Philip H. Mann, assistant dean and director of Community Services/Special Projects for the School of Continuing Studies at the University
Recently, he was notified by the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge that he has been selected to receive a Leavey Award for Excellence in Private Enterprise Education.
Now in its tenth year, this special program endowed by the Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Foundation permits the Freedoms Foundation to honor educators for their outstanding efforts to help young people better understand the function and benefits of the American private enterprise sy stem and free market economics. Because Mann’s entry was “unusually^ meritorius,” he earned a special award of $15,000, an amount granted only twice since 1977.
Last April, he won a George Washington Honor Medal from the Freedoms Foundation for excellence in economic education. The Foundation’s highest award, it is given for an outstanding individual contribution reflecting the ideals of human dignity7 and the principles of a free society
For the honor, Mann was cited for starting the Dade County7 Entrepreneurial Institute, which provides courses and technical assistance to minorities who are already7 in business or who would like to go into business.
Mann was also among the first group to originate the Metro-Miami Action Plan, a community7-wide program designed to decrease the disparity7 between the black community and the community at large in economic development, education, housing, and use of the criminal justice system.
The son of poor immigrants from Russia. Mann was bom in Brooklyn. N.Y When Mann was 12 years of age. his father died. Then Mann. w ho. in a sense became head of the family, helping his mother, two brothers and a sister found work at a fruit stand for $3 a w eek.
At 16, Mann left school in the ninth grade and his home to seek a life in Miami, “mainly* because I knew* it was warm here”
He arrived on a Trailway s Bus with $25 in his pocket— money* w*hich he had earned by* w orking in an Atlantic City7 variety* store. He rented a room for $6 a w eek in a downtown Miami guest house.
Fortunately*, his stepfather had trained him to be a window* cleaner and referred him to friends in the business in Miami. Mann w orked for $30 a w eek, six day s a week.
5 a.m. to 5 pun., cleaning window's for stores, houses and some tall buildings. It was outdoor work. which he liked, “but not challenging.”
From there Mann went to w ork as a bellbov at the
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Dr Philip H. Munti (right) and Entrepreneurial Institute participant Lewis Canty; cnvner of the Appliance Doctor in Gould’s Shopping Plaza. The courses enabled Canty to expand his business and hire additional employees.
Shore Club Hotel on Miami Beach. During the six-month tourist season he earned $3 a day7 plus tips, and in the offseason he w ent back to New* ibrk and got a job as a run ner with Coro Jewelry; a costume jeweler near the garment district.
The turning point in his life came when he was 18 y ears old and joined the Navy in Miami during the Korean Conflict.
Recalled Mann. “A sharp petty* officer got hold of me at the recruiting station and gave a good pitch for the Navy ov er the Army*. I signed up for four years. I scored high on the General Classification Test, and they* picked me for Hospital Corps School.
“I took basic at San Diego, was sent to Bainbridge. Md, for Hospital Corps School, and Philadelphia Naval Hospital for a y ear as a corpsman. It was my experience as a corpsman that made me decide to become a doctor.
“I trained as a neuro-psychiatric technician, working with mentally* disturbed patients and as part of a team giv ing electroshock treatments at Philadelphia. Then later I worked with the inmates at the Naval Prison at Portsmouth. N.H.,” he said.
His education continued in the Navy* in off-duty* hours as the y oung sailor pairsued his quest for know ledge.
Mann earned his General Education Dev elopment ( High School) diploma plus 11 credits from the l S. Armed Forces Institute of Education.
Mann remembers an education officer at the Philadelphia Naval Hospital who counseled. “You can go through the Navy7 from bar to bar or school to school. It’s y our choice.”
Working at the Naval Prison with lots of y oung people who had social and emotional problems fascinated Mann. “They* were mostly* kids who couldn’t cop>e with the structure that the service demanded—die discipline and tight organization. Some w ent AWOL. and some got undesirable discharges, bad conduct discharges or dishon-orabies. Many* were retrained and sent back to active duty:”
Still considering pre-med studies. Mann worked with p>eople who w ere in trouble and needed help, a pattern he was to follow* later in life. He held sick call. disp>ensed pills and ointments, and did some suturing. At the end of four y ears of service, he held the rank of Hospital Corps-man Second Class.
In 1956 he returned to Miami at the age of 23 and enrolled as a freshman at the UM under the GI Bill. Four y ears later he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree, with a major in psy chology.
NXhile a student, he sold shoes at A.S. Beck on Miami Beach. He couldn't afford medical school, but managed to get a job in the Dade County* School System as a teacher of the deaf and hard-of-hearing at Riviera Junior High
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